On Valerio Olgiati

A new book on the work of Valerio Olgiati was recently published. Here we feature an excerpt from the volume’s afterword by Jacques Lacan, who delineates the Swiss architect’s figurative approach.

- Jacques Lucan

I recently noticed a difference in the captions of the photographs that were originally among the 55 images published in Valerio Olgiati’s Iconographic Autobiography. In the magazine 2G, the photograph of a stone wall in Cuzsco is captioned “incredible precision” whereas in the magazine, El Croquis, the same image is labelled “inconceivable precision”. The two publications came out five years apart. In A Lecture by Valerio Olgiati, there are other unpublished images, including a photograph of a stone wall at Machu Picchu. The text speaks of “unbelievable precision”. Incredible, inconceivable, unbelievable: the use of these different terms might simply be the result of three different translations. However, when I asked Valerio Olgiati, he confirmed his hesitation, the difficulty he experienced in finding the most fitting description, finally admitting that the most appropriate word is inconceivable, undenkbar. The inconceivable is what reason cannot account for but by which we are nevertheless confronted, or rather which we can choose to be confronted by.